Attempts to optimise sleep through trackers, scores and wellness products may be making some people more anxious about rest and worsening their sleep, doctors and researchers have told the BBC.

The trend has been described as “sleepmaxxing” — using tools and routines such as sleep scores, magnesium supplements and white-noise machines in an effort to improve sleep. Taken too far, it can lead to “orthosomnia”, a term used to describe an obsession with achieving perfect sleep.

Orthosomnia is not formally recognised as a condition in the UK. However, doctors told the BBC they had noticed signs of the fixation among patients, some of whom brought sleep-tracker data to appointments believing they had a sleep disorder despite reassuring medical test results.

The problem with sleep scores

Commercial devices from companies including Fitbit, Garmin, Whoop and Apple, as well as smart rings such as Oura, Ultrahuman and RingConn, provide estimates of sleep duration and stages. Many also assign users a sleep score.

Dr Alanna Hare, a sleep medicine consultant at London’s Royal Brompton Hospital, said a sleep score was not a recognised concept in sleep science and had instead been created by device manufacturers.

She said some patients had become anxious after focusing on data from their trackers. Sleep, she added, did not respond well to attempts to perfect it.

The article also describes a University of Oxford study in which participants were given sleep scores that had been randomised and did not reflect how they had actually slept. Those told they had slept badly reported greater fatigue and lower mental alertness the following day, despite all the scores being artificial.

Jess Hill, a 32-year-old human resources professional from London, said she became heavily reliant on the sleep scores from her Garmin watch. She told the BBC that she sometimes expected to struggle during the day after receiving a poor score, even when she may have slept reasonably well.

Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert and author, said putting a number on sleep created a target and could lead to a cycle of worrying about sleep quality or quantity.

He said commercial trackers generally worked by measuring movement and had limitations. To measure sleep directly, he argued, it was necessary to measure brain activity.

Keeping sleep simple

Dr Hare recommends keeping the bedroom reasonably cool, dark and quiet, without trying to achieve exact conditions. She also advises getting bright light in the morning to help regulate the body’s natural clock, taking light exercise and eating a healthy, Mediterranean-style diet with a variety of plants.

Her main advice is to keep sleep simple and avoid adding unnecessary measures in an attempt to perfect it.